Organizers of the MomoCon—a popular games, animation, and comics convention—hold their annual event not in Los Angeles or Las Vegas, but in Atlanta’s Georgia World Congress Center, fourth-largest convention center in the United States.
“From a national perspective, a lot of people would think that Atlanta is a very typical southern, conservative, traditional city—and it’s very much not,” says Jessica Merriman, one of the founders of MomoCon. “Atlanta is very progressive and very modern, and it has a lot of amenities, including walkability and hotel density, which is important for larger meetings. It also has multiple convention centers in different parts of the city.”
About 53 million people visit Atlanta each year, according to Atlanta Convention & Visitors Bureau (ACVB), and many of them come to enjoy the city’s thriving restaurant scene, nightclubs, high-end shopping, as well as tourist attractions like 20-story SkyView Ferris Wheel and World of Coca-Cola, a museum-like exhibition hall dedicated to a certain fizzy beverage maker.
It helps that Atlanta is one of the most accessible cities in the country, thanks in part to Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL), the busiest airport in the world.
“Atlanta has evolved into a cool, cosmopolitan, young professional city that is really thriving,” says Mark Vaughan, executive vice president and chief sales officer for ACVB. “Major fortune 500 companies are moving here, and the airport allows us to be that type of city where you can get anywhere in the world on any day.”
Meeting planners can take advantage of Atlanta’s many unique offerings to create memorable moments. From classes at the Center for Puppetry Arts to tours of filming locations for The Walking Dead and Black Panther, to the birth home of Martin Luther King Jr., Atlanta has a wide variety of one-of-a-kind attractions and venues for groups of all sizes.
If you feel like you’ve “been there and done that” in Atlanta, rest assured, the city is constantly evolving. “There are a multitude of new dining options, hotels, event venues and attractions,” Vaughan says. “When guests arrive in Atlanta, they are surprised how much the city has transformed.”
